He Has Spoken

"[Hezbollah is prepared for al; options, and we can resort to them at any time. [The fighting would] not be limited [to the csale seen so far]."

"Some say I'm going to announce that we have entered the battle. We already entered the battle on October 8."

"[U.S. President Joe Biden had made a] fake argument that Hamas cut off children's heads [without] evidence, but stayed silent for the thousands of children in Gaza who were decapitated and their limbs were torn apart [by Israeli bombing]."

Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah

Reuters

To those who have imagined the Iranian proxy terrorist group Lebanese Hezbollah has not yet entered the war Hamas is waging with Israel in Gaza, its leader states otherwise. Pointing out his militia has been engaged  in fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border while threatening to mount further escalation when he feels the time is right. In his first interview his televised remarks made it clear that Hezbollah would fully engage. Should it do so there would be consequences for both Israel and Lebanon.

 

Israel will be forced to engage on another front with a well-armed, well-seasoned fighting group, interferring in its all-out determination to finally and fully destroy the capacity of Hamas (and Palestinian Islamic Jihad which has boasted that it took part in the barbaric October 7 bloodbath in Israel) to ever again threaten and commit deadly attacks against Israeli citizens. Diverting troop numbers from Gaza to Lebanon would not be Israel's first choice.

 

But having committed to a response that must be made, it will be Lebanon that will once again, but in greater measure, feel the destructive response that Israel's Defense Forces will mount, given no other choice, just as it is destroying infrastructure in Gaza in its drive to annihilate the Hamas terrorist group. Which, while under attack from Israel's military, continues to send rockets into Israel, despite a critical lack of electricity and gas sources for hospital operations in the enclave, all monopolized for the Hamas tunnel networks along with its missiles and rockets.

 

Gunshots rang out in wild celebration over Beirut as thousands of people packed into the southern suburbs of the capital to witness the speech by Nasrallah via video-link on a massive screen set up in the town square. Hezbollah fired a barrage of mortar shells and anti-tank missiles, along with, for the first time, suicide drones. All supplied to them by the Islamic Republic of Iran, ensuring it has a massive cache of weaponry, all reserved for the single purpose of attacking Israel.

 

"Don't test us", warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Any mistake Hezbollah commits to "will exact a price you can't even imagine".  Israel recognizes the reality that the Shiite terrorist group represents a serious immediate threat, with the estimation of Hezbollah being in possession of 150,000 rockets and missiles, as well as drones and surface-to-air and surface-to-sea missiles.

Full of praise for Hamas operatives' incursion into Israel attacking and marauding through farming villages, towns, military posts and kibbutzim, leaving over 1,400 children, women, elderly and soldiers dead in their murderous sweep. "Proof", he gloated that "Israel is weaker than a spider's web". That after a month of conflict Israel "has not been able to make any achievement". 

 

Funeral of Hezbollah fighter, killed by Israeli shelling, November 4, 2023    AP Photo Bilal Hussein

 

"This great, large-scale operation was purely the result of Palestinian planning and implementation", he stated admiringly. Hamas leaders have been entreating Hezbollah to expand involvement in the conflict, faced by a relentless aerial bombardment and the more recent ground incursion into Gaza by Israeli forces. Senior Hamas leaders and officials with Islamic Jihad travelled to Beirut last week to meet with Nasrallah to state their case.

No red line has yet been set by Hezbollah; instead they claim plans to join the war should they feel Hamas to be on the verge of defeat. And while Hezbollah has calculated to maintain limited attacks to keep Israel's military deployed on the border with Lebanon, over 50 Hezbollah operatives and another ten with allied terrorist groups have been killed on the Lebanese side of the border, along with ten civilians, among them a Reuters journalist.

Israeli airstrike on a Lebanese border village, November 4, 2023  AP Photo Hussein Malla